Crisis looms in ancient Rome: the uneasy triumvirate between
Caesar, Pompey and Crassus rests on thin bonds that seem inevitable
to break. The Senate supports Pompey, but Caesar has successfully
(and illegally) conquered Gaul, winning wide-spread military
support. Everything seems primed for disaster. In fact, in less
than a decade, the Great Civil War, the death gasp of the Republic,
will spread across the whole breadth of the empire, changing
forever the political and social life of Romans. This, of course,
is the best time to write a treatise on rhetoric.

Or it is if you happen to be Cicero. Cicero, a political player
as well as rhetorician, saw in the dis-ease of Rome a need for
leaders who could be well-informed about the issues, but also know
how to effectively persuade those around them to order and peace.
The risks are high and the need is pressing, both for the empire in
general and for Cicero in general—he’s been exiled, his home has
been destroyed by political thugs and his life is in danger for
criticizing high-ranking leaders, including Ceasar. But he also
knows that this isn’t the first time that the Roman world has been
rocked by political instability and needed strong leaders versed in
rhetoric. So when he sits down to write his rhetorical treatise, he
sets it not in the current period (far, far too risky!) but back
fifty years ago, just before another civil war would destroy the
peace of the Roman Republic.

The dialogue is written almost dramatically as three historical
figures gather together in the peace of a patrician home “during
the days of the Roman Games”: Lucius Crasses, Marcus Antonius, and
Scaevola. They are joined by the young men Sullpicius and Gaius
Cotta. Cotta suggests that in this peace “Crassus, why do we not
imitate Socrates as he appears in the Phaedrus of Plate? For your
plane tree has suggested this comparison to my mind, casting as it
does, with its spreading branches, as deep a shade over this pot,
as that one cast whose shelter Socrates sought “ (I. vii.28). You
might remember from our Pheadrus podcast that Socrates normally
engages in dialogues in the city, in the market or gymnasium or
private people’s houses, but in the Phaedrus, Socrates gets a
little topsy-turvey by going out in nature, giving long speeches
instead of dialectic and—most shockingly of all—defending rhetoric.
Well, looks like Crassus and Antoius are going to be similarly
inspired by the setting to break with tradition—these are powerful
Roman men who take action in politics and war and the business of
running an empire. They are manly men, not like the Greek
philosophers—the unmanly ninny GReekling-- who unambitiously ponder
the meaning of things like philosophy and rhetoric instead of
taking over the known world. In fact, Crassus seems to even have to
describe rhetoric in terms of what it can do in terms of political
power. And he starts by telling the most important creation story
of the history of rhetoric.

This story, as the legand goes and Crassus relates, starts with
“brute creation” and the point that while human beings are slower,
and weaker and less deadly than other animals they do have one
advantage—they can discourse. So the orator created “our present
condition of civilization as men and as citizens, or after the
establishment of social communities, to give shape to laws,
tribuals and civic rights?” (I.viii.33). Even today, Crassus says,
the orator upholds his own dignity and the safety of “countless
individuals and of the entire state.” Scaevola the cynical points
out that orators also have caused great disaster to the state.

So the discussion quickly turns to how to educate the orator to
be the best kind of person, morally and intellectually, to lead the
state towards greatness. Crassus (Cicero stand-in) and Antonio (C’s
brother’s stand-in) debate requirements for the good rhetor—is it
art or natural ability? It’s less of a clear-cut debate than you’d
think, and Antonius sort of switches positions between the first
and second book. Generally, both of the agree that “Good speakers
bring, as their peculiar possession, a stule that is harmonious,
graceful, and marked by a certain artistry and polish. Yet this
style, if the underlying subject matter be not comprehended and
mastered by the speaker, must inevilably be of no account or even
become the sport of universal derision” (I.xi.50). That sport,
incidentally, being the fruitless apolitical sophistry of the
Greeklings that these political Romans despise.That’s what Crassus
calls “Greeklings who are fonder of argument than of truth” But if
there’s good content to oratory, then that’s worth while—that’s
something that can actually DO something.

But this education, to know everything you speak on, is hard to
come by. Should orators be generalists or specialists? All of this
takes a lot of “zeal and industry and study” (475), to be “he who
on any matter whatever can speak with fullness and variety” (I.
xiii.59) because “it is nearer the truth to say that neither can
anyone be eloquent upon a subject that is unknowen to him. “ That
means lots and lots of study—of Roman laws, above all else, but
also on physiology, trade, astronomy grammar, all of it. Antonius,
again the fly in the ointment, points out that it would be
impossible to develop the kind of breadth that Crassus describes:
“I cannont deny that he would be a remarkable kind of man and worth
of admiration; but if such a one there should be or indeed ever has
been or really ever could be, assuredly you would be that one man.”
(I.vxi.) Wow. Ancient Romans had really mastered the art of the
compli-insult. Okay, so what is rhetoric, then? Is it a specialized
skill that only a few experts master or is it something added on to
these other skills? Besides, Antonius observes “not a single writer
on rhetoric has been even moderately eloquent” (I.xx.91). that’s a
good burn, too, and one that you still here in rhetoric: we study
this stuff all the time, so why aren’t we giving the speeches that
inspire the world? How can we be so dull when we’re supposed to be
experts in this stuff?

Crassus points out that he’s talking about an ideal and that
ideal is hard to achieve, maybe even impossibly, but it is
important to have the idea “picture to ourselves in our discourse
an orator from whom every blemish has been taken away and one who
moreover is rich in every merit”—what would that look like? First
there would be some physical characteristics—the orator who can’t
speak, and speak loudly and clearly, won’t got far. And there
whould be a “natural state of looks, expression and voice” for
oratory (I.xxvvii.126) and good memory.There should be natural
talent, but also passion and willingness to work to improve. This
passion for betterment is critical, Crassus muses “What else do you
suppose young Cotta, but enthusiasm and something like the passion
of love? Without which no man will ever attain anything in life
that is out of the common” (I. xxix.134). And even if someone
doesn’t have all of these natural abilities, their training can
help them to do a little better. “those on whome these gifts have
been bestowed by nature in smaller measure, can none the less
acquire the power to use what they have with propriety and
discernment and so as to show now lack of taste.” (I.xxvii.132).
Even if you aren’t the ideal orator, you can get much better with
practice.

The next day, the group is joined by Quintus Catulus and Gaius
Julius Ceasar. Catulus for his part, argues that Oratorys “derives
from ability, but owes little to art” in other words, it’s just a
knack after all. This time Antonius fights back, kind of reversing
his previous position. Antonius points out that “there are some
very clever rules” that can make an audience friendly to a speaker
and establish goodwill. But soon the whole conversation focuses
back on the importance of being widely educated, especially in law
and civil right.

So what are the takeaways from The Orator? Over all it’s a long
description of the importance of eloquence.

“Eloquence is dependent upon the trained skill of highly
educated men” (7) and “no one should be numbered with the orators
who is not accomplished in all those arts” of the well-educated
(53), because “excellence in speaking cannot be made manifest
unless the speaker fully comprehends the matter” (37). Good will
and delivery also emphasized. To educate, imitation comes first
(265), then gradually more serious argumentation, although there
are rhetorical geniuses. Performance should have genuine emotion
behind it (335). There are a variety of acceptable styles (II. 23).
(which we’ll talk about in a later episode) and different parts to
speech and preparing a speak—and I know it sounds like we’re
deferring, but we’ll talk about those in the future too. We have an
entire episode prepared for talk about these parts of preparing a
speech. Generally, thought, this treatise argues that over all
Eloquence “is one of the supreme virtues” (II.43)

But the fact that this treatise talks so seriously about
rhetoric and its philosophy is in some way worth remarking on in
itself. There’s some jingoistic feelings that manly Roman
empire-building is much cooler than sissy Greekling philosophizing
going around the culture and De Oratore is no exception that. I
always think it’s funny how the speakers in this dialogue go out of
their way to insist that they aren’t really sitting around
philosophizing, and if they are, it’s only because it’s a state
vacation and they kind of have to. The comparison with Plato’s
Phaedrus are apt: here are Roman politicians who are
acting out of character because of the circumstances and talking
like philosophers. But while Cicero has his characters insist that
the via activa is paramount, the circumstances suggest otherwise.
These politicians are all doomed—the crisis in the Republic is
about to reach full swing and soon many of the participants will be
dead or exiled. Their political influence will be only fleeting,
but Cicero’s dialogue invoking them keeps them relevant. The same
could be said for Cicero himself in his own time: a brilliant
politician, he was unable to stem the tide of violence as the
republic descended into autocracy. Cicero was eventually exiled and
then murdered.

He wasn’t just murdered but he was also posthumously beheaded,
his hands chopped off and his tongue repeated stabbed with a
hairpin. Sort of an ignomous end to a great politician. But Cicero
the rhetorician seemingly had no end—the impact of his treatises,
including de Oratore, dominated medieval and renaissance rhetoric.
So for all of the insistence that sitting around theorize isn’t as
important as the work of government, it turns out that theory has
the longest-lasting influence. Situating de Oretore in the real
violence of the Roman republic demonstrates not only the sometimes
futile work of rhetoric, but also how high the stakes are in
developing rhetors who are well-educated, balanced, virtuous and
eloquent.

About the Podcast

A podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have defined the history of rhetoric.